Please read The Quest for the Stone of Focusing, written by Reginald of Clan EpiK, for an enjoyable 1st person account of this quest. 

Step 0: Preparation

• The Skull of the High Acolyte from the Soul Fearing quest, or a Lich Skull.

• All Magical protections for 1st part

• Acid and Armor Protection for second part, along with Acid Bane and Impenetrability on your armor for the second part

• A lock picker

Step 1: Getting the keys

  This 1st portion of the quest requires the Skull of the High Acolyte.  You will journey to the Mines of Despair (75.4S  57.3E).  Near this location is a man named Le-Ai Rea (75.9S  57.3E).  

  When you give him the Acolyte's skull, he will give you some keys:

Le-Ai Rea says, "Lemme alone. And keep my door closed!"

You give Le-Ai Rea Skull of the High Acolyte.

Le-Ai Rea tells you, "Very impressive!  You managed to obtain the most unholy of skulls."

Le-Ai Rea holds the Skull of the High Acolyte with much admiration.

Le-Ai Rea tells you, "You have proven your worth to me."

Le-Ai Rea tells you, "Take these keys.  It will give you access to the place many fear."

Le-Ai Rea gives you Golden Key.

Le-Ai Rea gives you Le-Ai Rea's Key.

You've earned 12,000 experience.

Step 2: The Mines of Despair Maze

NOTE:  When you first arrive in the Mines of Despair, you will find a Warning Note, which can then be turned in to Le-Ai Rea for the History of the Mines of Despair.

  This next portion of the quest will require a person with lockpicking skill.  You will need to either portal tie to the dungeon entrance (if soloing this quest) or have the 2nd person do so if they want to complete the quest.  The reason for this is 2 buttons that will need to be pushed to get to the end of the dungeon.  For this part, I am going to use red to show the 1st(lockpicker's) run through, and then blue for the 2nd part.

1. Both groups run into the dungeon, and someone uses the golden key to open the door shown on the map below.

2. The lockpicker will run to the T-intersection and hang a left.  Run to the end of the hall and jump down into the white mist (shown as #1 on map)

3. The main team will run to the T-intersection and hang a right.  Run to the end of the hall and jump down into the white mist (shown as #2 on map)

  Ok, now that both teams are down, the blue team runs down the hall, takes the right branch when the passage forks, and stops at the big door.  There is a Lich Lord on the other side waiting for your other team to pull the lever, so stay ready.

  Now, while the blue team gets into position, the red team is going to follow the map below:

  Once button number 2 is pressed, the blue team's door will open.  They will be killing everything while you IMMEDIATELY portal recall back to the entrance, and follow them down.

  Blue team: When the door opens, kill everything you can find, but don't go past the next door until the red team gets there.  Don't worry about which route you take.  All paths at this point lead to the room with the 2nd open door.

Step 3:  The Lich Overseer

  Once your teams are together, hurry through the door before it closes.  Go down the hall, taking the left path at the T-Intersection.  You will then go down, through another door, down some more, and pass over some weak magic traps.  When you come into the big room below, you will be facing the Lich Overseer.  Ignore the other monsters and take down the Overseer, as the other monsters will die with the Overseer.  Everyone doing this quest will need to kill him, which isn't too much of a problem as he is on a 3-5 min spawn:

  Pick up a Focusing Stone off his corpse.  This white stone is the unusable version.  Now that you have it you will head through the door, using Le-Ai Rea's Key, and into the room with the portal to the 2nd half of this quest:

Step 4: Beyond the Mines of Despair

  Now, it may seem from the name of this dungeon that the harder part is over.  DON'T BE FOOLED.  This is the harder part.  In this second part of the dungeon, you will be facing several different types of monsters.  Here is a chart to help you out:

Monster	Weapon it uses	Weak against	Spells Cast
Granite Golem	Bludgeoning	Bludgeoning, Piercing	Various Level III and IV
Decaying Warriors	Lightning	Fire	Various Level III and IV
Fleshless Warriors	Acid	Fire a little	Vuln V, Acid Vuln V, Acid Bolt, Various Debuffs
Unstable Magma Golem	Fire	Frost	Beware, they EXPLODE when killed.

  Now, as you can see from the above chart, you really need to bane against Acid hardcore, as those Fleshless Warriors hit HARD and often.  My first time through I forgot to bane or wear my Armor VI bracelet, thinking it would be as easy as the 1st part.  Three hits later I am the lifestone...

  Anyhow, below is a map that should get you through it pretty quickly.  Here is a full map of the dungeon, courtesy of ACMaps, and the below map with a quick run-through:

 Notes:

• When you get to the bridge in the 1st part of this map, cross over it and rebuff, making sure you bane against acid.  Then cross back over and jump down to the level below, as shown here:

• Once you jump down, if you hug the walls the magma golems should not spawn, as they are triggered by magic traps in the middle of the room.

• After this point it gets nasty.  The fleshless warriors are hard to hit and most of them have shields, so you will not be doing much damage to them.  If you have a chance, try to hit their shield with Brittlemail and Flame Lure, so you can take 'em down a little quicker.  Mages, this section should not be hard for you at all.  I was able to cast Vuln IV on them fairly easily with a 230 Creature skill, so their magic resistance doesn't seem to be too high.

• When you get to the final room shown below, you are going to double-click on the focusing stone and then click on the Vortex.  DO NOT GIVE THE STONE TO THE VORTEX!!!

• Once you give it the stone, you will get your Focusing Stone, as shown below.  Recall out and you are done!